The present invention relates to a unit permitting computer operation of and data acquisition from liquid testing/handling apparatus.
In the pharmaceutical industry, for example, measurement accuracy is of great importance both in the research laboratory and the production line. This has led naturally to the development of complex and expensive dedicated test systems in which accuracy has taken precedence over automation.
An example of this can be seen in those commercial systems developed for dissolution rate analysis, and which are employed as an important adjunct to tablet assays. Such systems are rigidly defined, their operation being restricted to a set number of dissolution baths and specific types of end point measurement. For example, in those systems employing a spectrophotometer, solution from each of six baths is supplied to a respective quartz cell for analysis. Each cell is moved past a detector and the readings obtained for each cell are supplied in analogue voltage form to a dedicated display and/or recording device. Thus, in addition to being technically complex and expensive, such systems are limited to semi-automatic batch operation. Further, they are not readily adapted to continuous or automatic processing and have no provisions to permit automatic control of the take-up or passage of liquid through the cells in relation to the data contained in the output signal derived from the detector.